


Linger On

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adultery, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Coda, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Episode: s06e01 Exile on Main St., F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 16:16:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3256349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re the only one…” Cas trails off. He sounds different; more human than the last time they saw each other. He sounds like he’s seen some shit, not from up on high, but at eye-level, standing on solid ground with nothing between himself and death but a knife, some gut-instinct, and more luck than he probably deserved.</p><p>***</p><p>Wherein Dean Winchester has adopted an apple pie life, per Sam's dying wish, but refuses to sever his connection to Castiel, no matter how detrimental it may be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Linger On

**Author's Note:**

> This is a 6x01 coda post-Sam tossing himself into the pit, and if he had never returned for s6. 
> 
> Title and tone provided by "Pale Blue Eyes" by the Velvet Underground.
> 
> I devote this to my darling B&E, who inspired it by making me have domestic!Dean feels right before bed. We discussed this fic half-asleep, because that's the kind of horrible people we are. 
> 
> PS I hate the random dude they got to play Dean's BFF, so this is an AU where Benny is a normal, adorable human.

Dean wakes up to the sound of his radio alarm.

_—Thought of you as my mountain top,_  
_Thought of you as my peak._  
_Thought of you as everything,_  
_I've had but couldn't keep._  
_I've had but couldn't keep._  
_Linger on, your pale blue eyes._  
_Linger on, your pale bl—_

He reaches over and pounds the snooze button with his fist. It startles Lisa awake, who sits up on her elbow, looking down at him in sleepy bewilderment. “You okay?”

Dean wipes a tired hand over his face. It’s the time of year when six a.m. is still mostly nighttime, but he can see Lisa’s beautiful expanse of tan skin and decidedly-not pale blue eyes in the dim light of a watery sunrise.

He rolls over and curls into her, muffles his face into the crook of her neck, and shakes his head.

She knows. She always knows. He doesn’t have to say a damn thing.

Lisa holds him, combing her fingers through his hair and kissing the top of his head.

***

Wake up. Eat breakfast. Kiss Lisa goodbye. Drive to work. Build stuff. Eat lunch. Talk to Benny. Drive home. Shower. Eat dinner. Go to the bar. Talk to Benny. Go home. Have sex. Fall asleep.

Only in his dreams do ghosts need laid to rest, demons exorcised, and angels saved.

Only in his dreams is Sammy still alive; still calling him with, _So get this_ ; still falling asleep in the passenger seat of a car Dean no longer drives; still looking off in the distance in the way he used to, like a lost little boy, dreaming of getting out of The Life.

Dean’s reality is no longer The Life, but it’s his life, and he should be grateful for it.

Still, he dreams.

***

Dean’s phone rings. It vibrates on the nightstand, spinning slightly, lighting up and playing the same generic tune he never changed after he bought it.

He picks it up and yanks it off the charger, looks at the bright light with squinted eyes.

_No caller ID_

He slides his thumb over the green bar and clears his throat as he puts it to his ear, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Hello?” His voice is a deep rasp, and Lisa rolls over beside him, eyes blinking open wearily.

 _Sorry_ , Dean mouths, and sits up, climbs out of bed, letting his feet hit the cold hardwood floor.

“Hello?” he repeats. He can’t hear anything on the other end but tiny blips of quiet static.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean inhales sharply, and his heart goes from its steady beat to thumping wildly against his chest. He pads quickly over to the bathroom and turns on the light, shuts his eyes from the glare, and closes the door.

He swallows, avoids his reflection in the mirror, leans against the sink and crosses one arm over his chest, his other hand gripping his phone tightly, like the harder he holds it, the more likely the caller on the other side will stay on the line.

“Cas,” he breathes, broken and desperate, too late in the evening or early in the morning to give a damn about how pathetic he sounds.

“Dean, I need your help. A hunt—“

Dean interrupts with a laugh to cover the sinking disappointment in his gut, and shakes his head. “Out of all the reasons to call—No, Cas. I don’t do that shit anymore. Dad’s dead. Sammy’s dead. I saved the world. I paid my dues. I’m out.”

After a beat of silence, Cas replies, “Dean, you don’t understand. Thousands could die.”

Dean doesn’t respond. He stands perfectly still in the bathroom, staring at his bare feet on the tiled floor. He toes over a crack and numbly reminds himself to fix it this weekend.

“You’re the only one…” Cas trails off. He sounds different; more human than the last time they saw each other. He sounds like he’s seen some shit, not from up on high, but at eye-level, standing on solid ground with nothing between himself and death but a knife, some gut-instinct, and more luck than he probably deserved.

Silence stretches between them. Dean runs a trembling hand down his face. “But Sam… Sam wouldn’t want me to. You gotta understand.”

“I do, Dean. But I believe that, from the short time that I knew Sam, he would have wanted you to do what’s right. You don’t have to become a hunter again, but this is big. Many will perish. More will suffer. I can’t…” Cas takes a deep breath. “I can’t do it alone, Dean.”

Dean slides down the length of the sink and rests his forehead on his knees.

More silence. He listens to the sound of Cas’s breathing, pretends to hear the way his heart beats in his chest the same way Dean’s does, the way Sam’s did.

“Fine,” Dean says, but it comes out in a broken whisper, a broken will.

Cas tells Dean where to meet him and the line goes dead, but Dean doesn’t take the phone away from his ear.

***

They’re somewhere way outside Denver. It’s snowing. They find a cheap motel in the middle of the woods where there are no street lights and the road has turned into gravel.

It’s desolate. It’s safe. It’s something, at least.

Cas goes in and books a room, rushes back to the truck to pull Dean’s broken body out of it.

“I should take you to a hospital,” Cas mumbles as Dean’s feet touch the ground. He wraps Dean’s arm around his shoulders and takes the brunt of his weight as he shuffles them to the door of the motel room.

“No hospital,” Dean says, slurred from pain, stumbling beside Cas’s sure footsteps.

Cas shoves the door open with his foot and drops Dean onto the bed. Dean groans and rolls over on his side. A rib is broken. His shoulder is dislocated. There are two slash wounds that need stitched up; one on his chest, the other on his thigh.

He’s out of shape, apparently.

Cas tosses John’s old first aid kit on the bed. Dean hasn’t seen it in a long damn time, and he stares at it, momentarily distracted from his pain. It feels like a dream, but it’s so real. He remembers the little brown leather kit in the callused hands of his father, carefully pulling out anticeptic with shaking, bloodied fingers, barking orders at Dean to get this and that ready to use.

It’s so close, but it feels like none of it ever happened.

Cas turns on the light beside the bed. It casts a dull yellow glow across the already-drab room.

Without looking at him, Cas says, “I shouldn’t have asked you to come.”

Dean manages to choke out a, “You’d have died trying to kill that thing.”

Cas takes out some dental floss, a pair of scissors, a needle, and gauze. “You almost did.”

Grimacing through his pain, Dean replies, “But I didn’t. And we kicked that thing’s ass to the curb.”

Cas smiles at that, the small kind that no one seems to notice but Dean, where his lips barely move but the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Spoken like a true Winchester.”

“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

Cas shakes his head with a huffed laugh and crawls beside Dean, urging him to sit up. “C’mon, let me put your shoulder back into place and then I’ll deal with the cuts.”

***

A fifth of whiskey turns into… a lot of whiskey, and sharp pain becomes dulled with the help of Dr. Daniels.

Cas is on the last set of stitches—six on this thigh—and Dean is feeling relaxed and numb. The room is silent but for the methodical sounds of Cas’s tending, and the sloshing of Dean’s flask as he downs the rest of it.

Dean’s stripped to his boxers, sitting on the edge of the bed, and Cas is between his legs. He moves quickly and confidently—pierce, pull, pierce, pull, in quick little juts of his hand—and Dean tries not to think about how many people Cas has healed in the human way, how many sets of legs he’s knelt between.

Cas snips the floss and sets his instruments aside, stares up at Dean with a relieved breath.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, eyebrows raised. He sounds tired, and somehow he lost his own shirt in the fray. They’re both bruised and battered to shit, but Dean was the only one who ended up getting thrown against a wall and clawed by the damn thing.

Dean nods absently, suddenly hyper-aware of Cas sitting shirtless between his legs. “Good,” he croaks, and it’s a lie, but it’s better than being dead.

One moment, they’re staring at each other, and the next, a heat seeps behind Cas’s eyes and he leans forward, places a single kiss on the inside of Dean’s thigh, a couple inches from his stitches.

Dean’s breath catches in his throat, and Cas looks up at him through a fan of lashes, intense blue gaze questioning and daring. He places another kiss on Dean’s thigh, higher up, and another, until he’s at the crook of Dean’s hips and nipping at the skin there, gripping his waist with the force of his steadily dwindling patience.

“God, Cas…” Dean runs his fingers through Cas’s hair, still matted down with dried sweat.

Cas stands, slowly, and pushes Dean back against the bed, kneels in the V of his legs and picks them up to wrap around his hips. He kisses his way up Dean’s chest, laves at a nipple, nips at his chin, and lands on his lips, kissing them with the fervor of their post-adrenaline high, hard and deep.

Dean moans in Cas’s mouth and claws at his back, pulls him in closer and grinds their hips together. Cas’s cock is hard in his jeans, and Dean’s is straining against the elastic of his boxers.

With a feat of strength Dean didn’t think he had in him, he pushes Cas away.

Cas sits up, breath heaving, and tilts his head in question. His eyes are wide and wild, hair on end, chest and neck blushing red while the head of his cock peeks out of his jeans, wet and glistening.

Dean groans at the sight and rolls onto his side, shielding his eyes from it. “I can’t,” he mumbles in his arms.

“Why not?” Cas asks, like it’s the stupidest thing Dean has ever said.

“Lisa.”

“Who?”

“My girlfriend.”

Cas falls beside Dean on the bed. Dean still won’t look at him.

“I didn’t think you were attracted to women.”

Dean lowers his arm, eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

Cas shrugs. “I thought you were gay.”

“I’m not gay!”

Cas’s eyes flit down to Dean’s waning erection.

“I’m _not!”_

“So you’re…” Cas begins, waiting for Dean to fill in the blank.

Dean groans and wishes the thing had just let him die instead of cutting him up just enough that he and Cas would be having this conversation. “Bi. Or whatever. I don’t know. The point is, we can’t… you know… do stuff.”

“Because you’re in a serious relationship.”

“Yes.”

“With a woman.”

_“Yes.”_

“With whom you are in love.”

Dean stares at Cas and opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out.

Cas crawls out of bed and turns out the light, pads over to the second double bed and climbs under the covers.

“Goodnight, Dean. Thank you for your assistance today,” he says, tone flat and his back to Dean.

Dean stays where he is, on top of the covers and sideways across the bed. His tipsiness wears down and the pain comes back, a sharp reminder of his old life and all the reasons he left it.

“Night, Cas,” he whispers to the darkness.

***

When Dean wakes up the next morning, Cas is already gone.

***

At first, Dean checks his phone non-stop. Weeks pass. He checks it less. He goes to a phone store to make sure his number is still set to receive restricted calls. It is.

Months pass. He stops waiting.

***

Dean proposes to Lisa.

Lisa says yes.

***

They have a small ceremony in a Methodist chapel next to Ben’s middle school. A dozen or so people show up on Lisa’s side. Benny shows up on Dean’s side as his best man.

Lisa’s family periodically sneer at Dean, the mysterious quiet bum who isn’t at all good enough for their Lisa. It doesn’t really bother Dean, though, because he agrees.

Dean says, “I do” with a grin on his face and tears blurring his vision, a set of big brown eyes staring up at him in adoration completely drowning out the pale blue ones that permanently rest in the back of his mind.

They kiss, and as they are presented as Mr. and Mrs. Winchester to the public, Dean knows Sam would be proud of him.

***

The reception is held in the church basement, recently finished by Dean himself in exchange for letting them hold their wedding in it.

The food is made up of a potluck, and Benny grills some burgers in the small church kitchen. After they eat, they cut the cake and Lisa smooshes it in Dean’s face. Dean does it back and then licks the icing off her lips. The kiss lingers too long and they get wolf-whistled.

Champagne is popped open, and Benny’s speech involves a slap on the back while he says, “You best thank your lucky stars every damn day, brother.”

Dean gets dragged onto the dance floor by Lisa. She leads, and it’s not as terrible as Dean thought it would be. He has his wife in his arms, and forces himself to believe that it's all he really needs.

Lisa turns her head and whispers, “Sam would have liked this.”

Dean nods and swallows the sudden lump in his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, he would’ve.” He huffs a laugh and adds, “Probably would have given a better speech too. And cried because he’s a wuss.”

Lisa giggles lightly and kisses his cheek. They dance until the music picks up and more people join the dance floor. Lisa’s father cuts in and Dean smiles, excuses himself to get another drink.

His feet take him up the stairs and out of the building though, to the fresh summer air. The sky is clear and warm, and he looks up to see an infinite expanse of stars dot the sky.

Cas isn’t up there. Not anymore. Dean knows it, knows that his prayers fall on clipped wings.

But still, he prays.

“Castiel, I—“

“What,” a voice interrupts. It’s not a question.

Dean spins around, finds a dark outline of a man huddled on the stairs several feet a way, face only lit by the orange-glowing ash of a cigarette between his lips.

“Cas?” Dean asks, taking a tentative step forward.

The figure stands, holds onto the stair railing, balance wobbling.

“Yes, Dean?”

As Dean approaches, the moonlight reveals that Cas is in something akin to his old suit, rumpled and wrinkled, hanging loose on his form. He’s thinner and paler than Dean has ever seen him, tie barely knotted and hanging around his neck. His hair is on end, and when Dean finally gets close enough to grip his shoulder, he can see a shiner around his eye, a busted lip under the filter of his cigarette.

“What the hell are you doing here, man?” Dean asks, and Cas sags against the weight of Dean’s palm until he collapses back onto the step.

“Well I was going to attend your wedding, but I didn’t get invited,” Cas slurs, turning his gaze to Dean, glaring at him as he takes another drag. His eyes are glazed over and raw, flitting too quickly for the slow cadence of his speech.

Dean sits next to him, afraid to let go of his arm, and says, “Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for over a year. I thought you were dead.”

Cas sags against Dean, and Dean absently wraps his arm around Cas’s shoulders.

“Should be,” Cas mumbles. “Should’ve been killed when they ripped my wings off.”

Dean clenches his jaw.

“Still hurts, you know. Not _hurts_ … but… here.” He takes Dean’s hand and presses it to his chest. It feels bony underneath Dean’s palm, the tiny vibration of a rattle with each breath Cas takes. “I came here to… I wanted to congratulate you. But I saw you in there, at the altar, and…” He leans forward and buries his face in his palms, shaking his head back and forth. “You were so happy.”

Dean is frozen on the spot, so blindsided that all he can do is rub consoling circles on Cas’s back. He’s mad, he should be mad, but he can’t be, not with the ragged, quiet lamentation of an ex-angel in his hands.

“Why didn’t you call me?” is the only question he can manage. “I would’ve… We could’ve…” He can’t finish the thought, because he isn’t sure what they would have or could have done.

Cas swallows, sits up and puts his cigarette out on the step next to him. He wipes his face and takes a deep breath, steadying himself, before continuing. “You had everything. I didn’t want to shake that. I didn’t want to be a burden to you any longer.”

“You’re not a burden, Cas,” Dean replies. “You’re family.”

“I’m nothing.”

Cas stands suddenly and teeters, catches himself on the railing before taking two wobbly steps down the stairs and turning back. “It was good seeing you again, Dean. Congratulations. I wish you the best.”

Dean itches to follow after him, to stop him, demand answers or at least a phone number, invite him in for cake and beer, anything to get him to stay.

Instead, he watches Cas go.

***

Another year passes. They buy a house in another town that looks exactly the same as their old one. Dean pretends to be interested in the process. He signs his real signature about a hundred times on a stack of papers the thickness of the Bible that’s in the trunk of his old car.

He pretends to have opinions on things like décor. He installs a new water heater, an alarm system, an electric garage door opener. He takes up the carpet and refinishes the hardwood flooring. He insulates the attic and buys a riding lawnmower for the two acres out back.

He drinks. He drinks so much that he hides it, takes up a floorboard in the den and stashes a bottle of Jameson in it to take out when Lisa goes to bed.

He replaces it twice a week, in addition to the regular stock he keeps in the liquor cabinet.

If Lisa notices, she doesn’t say anything.

Lisa buys Dean a set of golf clubs for their one-year anniversary, an unspoken attempt to get him to have healthier hobbies other than fixing the house and drinking.

He watches some YouTube videos. He takes the clubs out. He gives it a try.

Sometimes he misses, bringing the club down like an ax to the point that little divots of soil pop up from the ground. It feels foreign in his hands and he looks at the seven-iron, shiny and new, wondering what the hell its actual _function_ is if not to construct or destruct something.

But he continues despite his trepidations, and finds that after a while—the steady methodical swinging, the burn of his hips and shoulders, the quietness, the small thrill of seeing the ball go further and further—relaxes him in a way that little else can. He doesn’t think of anything but the movement of his body.

He stays outside until the sun sinks down below the horizon, and picks up all the golf balls until he can’t see the ground at his feet anymore.

***

It’s late fall, and Lisa invited over some of their friends for a bonfire.

They’re “their” friends, but not really. Dean forgets everyone’s name except for Benny, who is tending the fire in peaceful silence, periodically getting up to retrieve beer or firewood.

Dean stays silent with him, lost in his own thoughts while Lisa hosts; other, faceless people around the fire chat about things that normal people probably talk about.

That’s why Dean and Benny get along so well: when there’s nothing to say, Benny doesn’t speak. Neither of them ask each other questions, and neither of them give any answers. They’ve been best friends for years, but they don’t know a damn thing about each other, and that’s okay by them.

Benny’s got the fire roaring nice and high, and Dean watches it, entranced, when his phone vibrates in his pocket.

His mind immediately goes to Sam, and he stops himself, fishes in his pocket while he automatically flits through his tiny mental rolidex of people who would be trying to contact him: Lisa’s here, Ben’s at a friend’s house and would call Lisa first anyway, Benny’s sitting next to him, and his boss is on a cruise in the Bahamas. He doesn’t know anyone else, except—

He takes out his phone, doesn’t recognize the number, but from his old life, he remembers the area code as being somewhere in Ohio.

With a slight nod to Benny, he stands up and walks to the side of the house, answering the phone in the process.

“Hello?”

“Hello, may I please speak with Dean Winchester?” The voice belongs to a woman, probably mid-thirties, sounding blank and tired.

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Winchester, my name is Janelle and I’m calling from Montgomery County Memorial Hospital on behalf of Castiel Winchester.”

All the blood drains from Dean’s face, and he sags against the siding of the house.

“What happened? Is he okay? Where the hell is Montgomery County?”

Before she can answer, Dean realizes he doesn't have time for shock, so he pushes himself back to standing and runs into the house, doors slamming as he rushes to his bedroom.

“He’s alive, yes. What is your relation to the patient?”

Dean runs up the stairs and slams on the bedroom light. “I don’t…” He stops, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “He’s my brother. What happened? Where’s Montgomery County?”

“Unfortunately I am unable to provide you with additional information as to his condition until he regains consciousness.”

“He’s unconscious? Is he stable? _Where is Montgomery County?”_

“Yes, he’s stable. Montgomery County is in Dayton, Ohio.”

“I’ll be there in two hours.” Dean hangs up the phone and tosses it on the bed before grabbing his old duffel from the back of the closet and shoving clothes in it as fast as he can.

He’s midway through emptying his sock drawer when Lisa comes in, worry etched across her face. “Everything okay?”

Dean can’t meet her eyes. He grunts and goes into the bathroom to grab his toothbrush.

“I’m gonna be gone for a bit.”

She follows him to the bathroom. “Mind telling me why?”

Dean pauses, clenches his jaw, and stares pointedly at the sink. It’s been two years since the time Cas called him, asking for help on a hunt. Two years since he felt Cas’s hands on his body. Two years since he looked into those pale blue eyes and remembered the feeling of rising from the depths of hell.

As much as he doesn’t want to say it aloud, he manages to grit out a, “It's Cas,” because that’s the only thing he’s ever needed to say to make Lisa understand.

She touches his shoulder, reaches up and kisses him on the cheek. “Be careful. Keep me updated.” She turns away and hesitates in the threshhold. “I love you.”

When Dean doesn’t reply, she leaves the room silently.

***

Dean makes it to the hospital one hour and thirty-six minutes later.

He runs into the ER, goes straight to the desk, hands shaking, and says, “Winchester. I’m here to see Castiel Winchester.”

The clerk behind the desk checks a piece of paper and issues him a badge, gives him Cas’s room number, and he’s off, navigating his way through the hospital labyrinth, dodging stretchers and trying not to run.

He passes Cas’s room and backpedals, stops in the doorway, and looks in. The curtain is drawn around the bed, and Dean enters, slowly, his entire body trembling with anxiety.

“Cas?”

No answer.

He swallows, raises a hand and moves the curtain aside.

Cas is—Dean’s never seen him like this. He’s seen Cas shattered into tiny pieces, seen him fight and fail, seen him bloodied. Hell, he even stabbed and shot the guy himself.

But the man on the hospital bed isn’t an angel. He’s just a man, once broad and strong and tan, color in his cheeks and healthy.

He's pale and thin, eyes closed, dark bags underneath them, weighing them down. His cheekbones jut out of his face more than they used to. His hair has tufts of grey at the sides. His lips are dry and slightly parted. There are tubes and machines hooked up around him.

His hands, once rough and strong, are brittle and frail.

Dean pulls up a chair and sits next to the bed, takes one of Cas’s hands in his own. His skin feels like paper under his fingertips.

Dean can’t do anything but stare. He can’t think, he can’t feel, he can’t even breathe. He exists only in observance of this moment, not wanting to be part of it. Out of all the monsters he’s fought in his life, this is the first time he’s ever wanted to run away from anything.

But he can’t. So he stays.

***

Nurses come and go over the span of a couple hours. They tell him it was some kind of drug overdose, but they don’t tell him what kind of drugs, or whether or not it was intentional. They don’t tell him if there was anything _weird_ about it, and while they’re gone, Dean pricks Cas with silver, rubs some holy water on him. He doesn’t want to put anything in his mouth, so he waits to administer the salt test.

After a while, Cas stabilizes enough to go to the ICU. Dean fills out paperwork, flips through Cas’s wallet to figure out some information, and makes up the rest.

Cas’s wallet is a tattered brown leather affair, and Dean takes his time thumbing through it. All the credit cards are in his name, the ID looks real, and he’s only carrying twenty-three bucks with him. Even his car insurance card is legitimate.

The hospital doesn’t want to keep him longer than they have to, they say, intentional overdose or not. No health insurance, won’t qualify for anything else. They can’t afford to keep him. Dean knows the drill. They ask if he would be willing to take him once Cas gains consciousness. Dean says he will. He doesn’t know where, but they don’t have much of a choice.

So Dean waits.

***

Dean’s asleep across his arms leaning on the hospital bed when Cas comes to.

Fingers run through his hair to wake him up, and for a moment, Dean doesn’t know where he is. He feels a familiar touch, comforting in a way that no one else’s is, because it’s the touch that caressed his soul, that built his body from ashes, that saved him when he didn’t deserve saving.

He lifts his head to find Cas smiling at him—trying to smile at him. It’s wavering and tears are welling up in his eyes. He doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head and looks away.

“Hey, hey…” Dean consoles, and takes Cas’s hand from his face, squeezing it. “It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Cas looks up the ceiling and takes a shuddering breath.

Dean reaches up and cards his fingers through Cas’s hair. “You’re okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

He thinks that maybe he’s only reassuring himself.

***

The clothes Cas came to the hospital in are covered in vomit, so he gives Dean his address and house key and asks him to pick up a new outfit to go home in. He looks humiliated and ashamed, and he still only barely speaks. He sleeps mostly, and when he’s awake, he stares off into the distance, like he’s reliving whatever the hell happened to him in a loop that never disintegrates.

When Dean reaches the address, he double-checks what he wrote down to confirm that this is really the right place.

The building has four stories and it looks abandoned. Some of the windows are boarded up, there’s graffiti all over the decaying brick, Dean heard a couple gunshots on his way over, and a deserted water heater is on its side obscuring the entrance to the building. It looks like someone dropped it out of a window.

Dean makes his way to the fourth floor. He smells a lot of weed, hears dogs barking and babies crying. Sirens run in the distance nonstop. The sound of dripping echoes off the walls from several places.

He reaches 4C and puts the key in the lock. The door swings open and he flicks on a light.

It’s a studio. There’s a single window with bars on it on the far wall. In one corner sits a small, mostly deflated air mattress next to an ancient-looking desk lamp on top of a crate. In the opposite corner is a kitchenette. There’s a cup in the sink and a tea kettle on the stove, a humane mousetrap on the counter in the corner.

To the left of the bathroom, Dean locates a tattered wooden dresser with a drawer missing and opens it. It’s all nicely-folded neutral-colored t-shirts in the top drawer, and a couple pairs of ripped-up jeans in the bottom next to a stack of plain white boxers.

Dean gets a shirt, a pair of jeans, some socks and boxers and tosses them in his duffel.

He opens a tiny closet by the front door to find a jacket, something to keep Cas warm on the trip back.

The only item hanging in the closet is a trench coat. Dean pulls it off the hanger, holds it for a minute, traces his hand over the familiar fabric. He brings it to his face and smells it, lets himself get lost in the feel of Cas’s grace, like the start of baseball season in the childhood Dean never got to have. It’s heady, and for a moment, Dean can forget everything that’s happened, can slide back into his past, where Sam is alive, and Dad is too, and Cas is an angry, stubborn, strong warrior of the Lord telling him he’s worth saving, even when he knows he isn't.

None of that is real, though, so with a deep breath, Dean tosses the trench coat in his bag with the rest. 

Out of curiosity’s sake, he peeks into the bathroom, and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

The floor is covered in bloodied bile and water, the sink is clogged and full to the brim, the overflow still dripping from the rim of the sink. The shower curtain has been ripped off its rings, and—

 _God_.

A tourniquet and syringe are floating in the red, murky water of the bathtub, along with an empty bottle of cheap booze.

Dean braces himself on the door’s threshold, grasping at his abdomen and swallowing down the rising bile in his throat. He closes his eyes and turns around, tries to take a clean breath of air, and makes his way to the kitchen.

He finds a scrub brush under the sink, a pair of rubber gloves, and a couple cleaners, then he steadies himself before heading back to the bathroom.

Jaw clenched, forcing his mind blank, he cleans.

***

The drive home from the hospital is silent and tense. Cas is almost catatonic, staring only at his hands resting in his lap. He's swimming in his old trench coat, his t-shirt hangs off of him, and when Dean helped him get dressed, he was mostly skin and bones, jeans held up by sheer force of will alone.

When they hit the highway, Cas says, barely above a whisper, “You used to listen to music.”

“Used to do a lot of things,” Dean replies, and they fall silent again.

Cas plays with his fingernails, bitten to the wick, cuticles ripped up and scabbed over.

“You hungry?” Dean asks when they enter Cas’s neighborhood. Now that he’s driven around it a couple times, he remembers it. He did a hunt here, maybe two, back in the day.

“No.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t really a question. Burgers or breakfast?”

Cas absently puts his hand to his stomach and makes a desperate groaning sound.

“Alright fine. Bed for you. We’ll try again in the morning.”

They get to Cas’s apartment and Dean helps him up the stairs, props him against the wall while he re-inflates the mattress, helps him back out of his shirt and jeans, and lays him on the bed.

He takes off his own jacket and sits against the wall after he turns off the light.

“You’re staying?” Cas asks into the darkness.

“Not like I can leave.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Right. Well, I’m not.”

Cas goes quiet and Dean listens to his breathing. Cas breathes like he’s fallen asleep, but then he breaks the silence by whispering, “I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“Alright.”

“You’re a damn junkie. Junkies are never sorry.”

“I used to be.” Cas pauses, and adds, “Why are you staying?”

“Because you don’t need my forgiveness. You just need to make it through the night.”

“And then?”

“And then I’m out of here, and I’m gonna hope to hell you don’t pull this shit a second time.”

Cas falls asleep shortly after, and Dean waits, knees to his chest, staring off into the darkness.

***

Dean wakes up to ratty Burberry carpeting digging into the side of his face. Dim light is shining through the broken blinds of the window above him. He sits up and rubs the sleep from his eyes, finally remembering where he is.

Cas is curled up on his side, unmoving.

Dean waits, watching him, looking for any semblance of a rise and fall of his lungs.

“Cas?” Dean asks, softly, reaching out and shaking his shoulder.

“Mmm?” Cas replies, and rolls over, blue eyes blinking up at Dean in bewilderment.

For a moment, everything is back to the way it was—rather, the way it always should have been but never managed to be: Cas, sleepy and confused on a Thursday morning; Dean, rolling over to wake him up and ask him what he wants for breakfast.

That reality never gets to exist, though. Instead, the world has given them endless tragedy, broken their bodies and hearts so many times over that their bare hands can no longer mend them.

Dean wants to be angry at Cas for what he’s done to himself. He wants to shake him and demand answers. He wants to build Cas a house on a farm where he can keep bees and smoke pot and whatever else this new, human version of Cas is like that Dean actually has no idea about because they’re total strangers now, adrift from one another in space and time.

And that's the biggest tragedy of all. There are no barriers between them but the ones they build for themselves. 

Dean's hand is still clutching Cas’s shoulder when he swallows and says, “I can’t stay, Cas.”

Cas nods, a slight movement under a scratchy woolen blanket.

“I got a job I gotta get back to. And a family. I wish—“

“It’s fine, Dean. I never asked for you to come here in the first place.”

“Are you gonna—fuck, I don’t know how to ask this—are you gonna get clean?”

Cas replies with a simple, “No.”

“So you’re just going to keep doing this shit until you die?”

Cas shrugs.

“What the hell, man? Why? Why can’t you keep it together?”

Cas abruptly sits up in his bed, wild-eyed and awake. “You dare talk to _me_ about keeping it together, Dean Winchester? How many drinks do you have a day? How often do you have sex with Lisa?” He leans closer, blanket falling off of his lap, “Do you dream of hell like I do, Dean? Do you dream of the peace inherent in permanent, unyielding agony, because it’s so much better than this place? This world, bereft of good people like Sam, absent of divinity and kindness, empty at its very core? Do you, Dean? Because the only thing I have left inside me is a death wish where my grace used to be.”

Dean can’t breathe. All he can do is drown in the painful, glassy blue eyes of Castiel, agonized and impassioned, boring into him like he’s done so many times in their past, millennia of life hiding behind them.

He matches Cas’s glare, and says quietly, “I’m happy, Cas.”

 _“Liar!”_ Cas shouts, and grabs Dean’s shirt to pull him in closer. “I _know_ you, Dean. I know every molecule of your body like I know the stars in the sky and I know when you’re lying to me. Don’t you dare _pity_ me and the way I handle my pain, like the way you handle yours is any better. At least _I_ don’t drag innocent people into my life.” He shoves Dean off of him and lays back down on the bed, muttering a final, “You need to leave.”

Dean doesn’t move, hesitating over his shattered moral compass, and Cas adds, _“Now.”_

Dean stands, angry, hurt, and confused. He grabs up his duffel and leaves the apartment without another word.

***

Months pass. Dean begins checking the Dayton obituaries every day, knowing that they wouldn’t publish one for a west-side junkie whom no one even knew, who probably moved out of the city after Dean found his whereabouts anyway.

Though he has no evidence, he quietly mourns the death of his fallen angel, and tries to forget about the nightmares he has of Cas dying, scared and alone in his apartment bathroom.

***

The weather gets warm again and Dean grows restless. He’s run out of things to fix in the house and church, he can only play so many rounds of golf in a week, and he lacks the attention span to watch any TV or read a book.

He drinks. He sits in his recliner every night staring off into space. He drinks some more. He thinks about Cas. He forces himself to stop. He thinks about Sam. He forces himself to stop that too. He thinks about Cas some more, the way he looked when they first met, and the way he looked when they last met, how they could possibly be the same person, how an angel of the Lord could fall to earth and become a hopeless, lonely addict.

He thinks about what he could do to help, and remembers that he’s all out of help to give.

So he drinks.

Lisa—though having grown withdrawn and irritated by him, and really, Dean doesn’t blame her—suggests that Dean go on a weekend trip somewhere quiet, clear his head, get some fresh air.

There’s only one place he can think of that he would want to go, but he tells Lisa he’s going on a fishing trip with Benny.

***

Dean makes his way up the four floors of the shitty old apartment building, kicking himself for even attempting this. He could live an entire lifetime with his remaining glimpse of hope that Cas is alive somewhere. He doesn’t need to go to the dude’s damn apartment to find someone new living in it, telling him the old tenant died a few months back.

Dean hesitates in front of the door, hand poised to knock, trying to convince himself he’s better off not knowing.

The door swings open before his fist gets a chance to land.

“Dean?”

He’s met with— _God_ , it’s Cas. It’s really Cas. Blue-eyed, wild-haired, head slightly tilted, completely and utterly _Cas._

Dean’s heart drops into his stomach and he surges forward, wraps his arms around Cas’s neck, buries his face in it and holds on tight.

Cas drops the trash bag he’s holding and makes a surprised noise.

“You’re alive. Holy shit you’re alive,” Dean mumbles into his neck. He smells… _good._ Really good. And Dean feels muscle over bones, strong, lean, like Cas has been exercising. He can feel Cas breathe against him, and there’s no more rattling or wheezing, just air, and Dean can barely keep himself standing.

“Dean?”

Dean lets go, totally unaware that there are tears of intense relief in his eyes. He feels better than he has in months, and it doesn’t matter if Cas is high as a kite or on whatever else, Dean’s just thrilled he’s _alive_.

He wipes his eyes and shakes his head. “Sorry to just—“

But Cas surges forward and catches Dean’s lips with his own, and _fuck_ , Dean thinks he may have died on the way to Cas’s apartment because there’s no way this is happening, stubble scraping at his face and soft lips parting, inviting his tongue inside. Nothing else in the world exists but this moment, and they grip each other like drowning men gulp in air upon reaching the surface. It’s desperate and harsh and Cas tastes like toothpaste and Dean notices for the first time that he’s wearing a button-up shirt and tie but he doesn’t care enough to pull away and ask about it. He just needs this, he _needs_ it, and if this is what addiction feels like then he doesn’t blame Cas at all for everything he’s been through, might still be going through, is probably still going through every damn day of his life. But Dean gets it now. It all comes crashing down over his head like a lightning strike.

Cas is the thing that’s missing. Cas is the emptiness in Dean’s heart. Cas is the big picture. And Cas is what Dean has been blind to this whole damn time for no reason at all but a fruitless promise he made to Sammy too many years ago.

Cas pulls away, gasping, hand on Dean’s chest while he gains his composure. “God, Dean, I’m so sorry. I didn't mean to...”

Dean's wedding band weighs heavy on his hand and he takes a step back, a deep breath. “It’s… fine.”

Cas gestures him inside, avoiding his eyes, a blush creeping up his face; his beautiful, tan, healthy-looking face.

The apartment has improved greatly since Dean was in it last. There’s a pull-out couch where the air mattress used to be, and a side table with the same old lamp on top of it beside a small stack of books. The window is covered in plain sheer curtains, and the entire place looks well-cared-for.

“What are you doing here?” Cas asks, and subtly wipes his mouth with his hand.

“I wanted to see if you were okay,” Dean answers truthfully.

“Oh.”

An awkward silence falls over them, but Dean fills it with, “So are you? Okay, I mean?”

Cas shrugs. “That depends on your definition of okay.”

“Not dead.”

Cas nods. “Then yes, I’m okay.”

"Good." Dean nods in return.

More silence. “Can I… get you something to drink?”

Dean scratches the back of his neck, feeling suddenly foolish and out of place. It was rash to come here, bombard Cas like this, but he was so sure Cas wouldn’t even be here.

“No, no I’m fine. I just… wanted to make sure you were, you know, okay. And you are. So… I guess I should get going.”

“You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to. I just got home from work.”

Dean smiles, because the thought of Cas having a job makes his chest ache in the best way. “Yeah? What do you do?”

Cas shrugs and looks away. “Just IT work. It’s a contract job. I work a few months here and there setting up security systems and networks for companies.”

Dean tries not to gape and fails.

Clearing his throat, Cas asks, “Can I take your jacket? Do you want some tea or anything?”

Dean slides off his jacket and hands it to Cas, who hangs it up in the closet next to his old trench coat. “You got any coffee?”

“Sure. Have a seat.”

Dean sits on the edge of the couch and looks at Cas’s stack of books, then around the apartment. He watches Cas as he puts a filter in a used-looking coffee pot, then measures out the water.

“I’m… I don’t know how to ask this, but—“ Dean begins.

Cas interrupts him without turning around, “You want to know if I’m still a 'junkie', as you called it.”

After a pause, Dean replies, “Yeah. I guess.”

Cas measures out the coffee and puts it in the filter. “It’s… hard. It’s a struggle. Every day. But I’ve been clean for three months. And I plan to stay that way.” He switches on the coffee pot and turns around to lean on the sink, still avoiding Dean’s gaze, arms crossed over his chest. “I was going to call you. To tell you. But I kept thinking one month wasn’t good enough. Two months wasn’t good enough. Three months… It still… It all still hurts so much. The emptiness. The sorrow. It never goes away.”

Dean stands and crosses the small room toward Cas, reaches out and lifts up his chin so that their eyes meet.

“I know,” Dean says. “Everywhere is hell when you carry it with you.”

Cas nods, looking away again. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Dean smiles, and it takes every ounce of will he’s got to not lean in and press his lips to Cas’s, feel them against him again.

“I am too.”

***

The afternoon passes. They talk. They drive to a diner. They talk. They go back home. They talk. Dean has spoken more words in a single day with Cas than he has in the past year collectively.

They talk about Sam, how much they miss him. They avoid contemplating where his soul resides. Dean tells Cas stories about his dad. Cas trades with stories about his, about the birth of humanity while they share a piece of butterscotch pie.

They talk about their lives, but Dean doesn’t bring up Lisa often. He tells Cas about how much Ben is growing up, how Dean barely recognizes him, how he’s still not sure if he’s Dean’s biological son, but knows for damn sure that it doesn’t even matter.

Cas tells Dean about his solo hunting adventures, and how he gave it up when he realized that even though he could win a few battles, he’d never win the war. It’s a sad speech, but Dean understands it, understands what it’s like to give up The Life, like a piece of their soul just rotting away into nothing.

When it's time to sleep, Cas offers to take the floor, but Dean insists, and when the lights are out, he immediately regrets it once he realizes how damn old he is, and crawls into bed with Cas anyway.

Cas laughs lightly; it might be the first time Dean has ever heard it, and he never wants it to end.

They fall asleep to the sounds of sirens and trains in the distance.

***

Another day passes, and another. Cas wakes up at ungodly o’clock to go to work, and comes home in the early afternoon. They build a routine that falls into place so seamlessly that it doesn’t feel like a routine at all.

Dean grills burgers, and while they’re eating around Cas’s dented old coffee table, Cas says, “It’s easier, you know. With you here.”

Dean nods solemnly. “Yeah. It’s easier being here.”

***

Dean’s will power breaks that night, when they’re lying in bed, awake but not speaking.

He reaches out and touches Cas’s hip, gently, runs his fingertips underneath Cas’s t-shirt and over his hipbone.

Cas turns to him, tangles their legs together, runs his hand up Dean’s arm.

In the dim light of the streetlamp outside, Dean can see the outline of Cas’s face, the questioning apprehension in his eyes. He doesn’t say anything, just waits, and Dean kisses him, softly at first, listening to Cas's quiet moans and gasps as Dean runs his hands up his back, soft cotton over his knuckles and warm skin underneath his fingertips.

The kiss grows heated, and soon they’re panting into each other’s mouths, groaning and writhing.

It’s wrong. Dean knows it’s wrong. This is the worst thing a person could ever do, but _god_ , he needs Cas. He needs to feel Cas on him, in him, needs to get closer, somehow, anyhow. None of it is  _enough_ , and he needs more. He needs everything Cas can give him.

There’s tension threaded within the passion, but Dean can’t stop. He reaches into Cas’s boxers and strokes his length. Cas gasps in his mouth and it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. His hands stay threaded in Dean’s hair, but Dean pushes the elastic of his briefs down and slides them together, takes them in hand and fists them both.

Dean kisses and bites at Cas’s neck, and Cas breathes ragged, panting out Dean’s name, thrusting his hips into Dean’s fist with abandon.

Dean meets Cas’s lips again, and they kiss and kiss and kiss, lips never leaving one another, bodies driving each other to the brink inch by blessed inch.

 _“Fuck_ , Dean…” Cas exhales, erratic rhythm and tensed muscles making his body tremble under Dean’s touch. “I’m—“ Cas comes with a sharp intake of breath over Dean’s fist, hot and wet while Dean keeps fucking them both in hand.

Dean watches him, outlined in beautiful ecstasy, and comes shortly after, sucking on Cas’s bottom lip and filling his fist, mind going blessedly blank for a brief, beautiful moment.

He needs it. Again and again, he needs exactly this.

They stay tangled together in the afterglow, kissing periodically between ragged breaths.

Once they've cooled down, and Dean's eyelids begin to grow heavy, Cas asks, tentative, “So what happens now?”

Dean doesn’t want to answer. He doesn’t want anything to exist outside of this moment.

But it does. So he answers, honestly.

“I don’t know.”

“What about—“

“I know.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

Something wrenches in Dean’s gut, roils around like a poison, destroying him from the inside.

“Yeah.”

“And then what?”

“She’s gonna leave me.”

Cas stays silent for a beat, and says, “Would you ask for her back?”

Dean takes a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

A pregnant silence stretches between them, long enough that Dean drifts off.

Cas asks, barely above a whisper, “What’s going to happen to us?”

 _Junkies are never sorry_ , crosses Dean's mind. He doesn't know why, or what it means, but he dismisses the thought, sets it all aside to deal with another time, when things are better.

“The same thing that always happens to us,” Dean replies, slow and sleepy. “We’ll keep finding our way back to each other.”


End file.
